001committee meeting this Wednesday, April 9th, 2025. Uh, roll call. Mr. Putnham and Ellen, Mr. Kisco, superintendent, assistant superintendent, uh, committee members, and everybody else you have. Good. All right. All right. Let's make a motion for approval. Approval of the agenda. So moved. Second. Right. Any uh discussion? No. All in favor? Anybody opposed? None. The motion passes. Let's make a motion for approval of the [Music] minutes. Any discussion? All in favor. One abstension. Yep. Two eyes. All right. Motion passes. Public participation. Josh, is anybody on the public line? No, there's not. Forego section number five. Get right into it with Rachel. Hello. Um, so social media update. Um, I included everything in the packet. Some highlights I'd like to point out. Farmington Middle School did an awesome job with their uh drone footage. Thank you, Josh.
002Of the TMS out on the field. It was eighth graders, correct? Um, yeah. So, that came out super awesome. So, thank you Josh for that as well. Um, and then some other highlights. You may have noticed that Forbes and Vogle Wetmore um, school websites are now live. Um, I hope to have the other two done before our next meeting. So, it'll be in the next packet and then we'll officially all be moved over to the new um, website platform. Which schools are pending? Horford and Southwest. And that's about it for social media. Is anybody questions? Oops. You want me to move on or you have to? No. Oh, charge. Okay. So, next you'll see a breakdown about the protection plan. Um so you can see the total damages per school. Um damages with and without
003protection. How many of the um students who had the protection plan uh utilized it um for more than two damages. um and what the total um billable amount was um that went out to students and their families. Um I also gave a little um chart going over what type of breakages um are, you know, currently seeing. um screens is always our top um breakage. Um just kind of the nature of it being a fragile piece of the equipment. Um but overall um better than last year still um for the middle school and um the high school's relatively close. Um, so are there any I had a quick a quick question. The last year we saw the trend at TMS on the Chromebooks was was strictly driven by chargers. I mean it was like seven to
004one of any other repair. This year it looks like it's the opposite way. We're having a lot of screen replacements. Do you attribute that? We didn't have this is from my memory. We didn't have anywhere near 300 screen replacements last year. Do you see is it a behavioral change? What what's causing the significant amount of damage to screens and it was an odd It's a lot of money, $10,000. Is that only what people got bills who didn't have the insurance or is that the total cost of damages including somebody who would have insurance? That's um those who did not have insurance. Um so, and that's not to say that all of those damages were screens. It could have been some that were needed to be completely replaced. So that's, you know, I think $300. Okay.
005Um, so things like that. I'm just saying that screens was was still a bulk out of all of our damages districtwide. Um, so yeah, I um the only thing I can say on the charger end is last year I did implement some cases that have a charger pocket. Um, so I'm hoping that helped. Like, you know, charger comes off your computer, it goes right in the pocket that's attached to your case. Um, so that's something that, um, my son has at his school, and he's managed to keep a hold of his charger, so I wanted to mirror it in ours. Um, and it's something that I I look to do um, in the high school as well. um providing some sort of case that you know the charger goes right in the pocket. Um I
006think that also um we've held pretty firm about giving out loaner chargers this year. Um we typically don't or we only have a set amount that we will loan out for you know certain cases. Um, so you know, with that being said, they know they're not going to get one, so they hang on to theirs or they replace it themselves, one or the other. Last question is the battery. So battery, are we are we including like if the battery just doesn't work anymore, like what's what qualifies a battery for the insurance plan? So, on a Chromebook, we can do a battery test that will show us like the life. It, you know, estimates the life of the battery just like it kind of does on on your phone. Um, we typically don't charge for that
007because it's a wear and tear kind of thing. Um, but if it's a liquid damage sort of situation, then that becomes a different story. Thrown against a wall or whatever the reason may be. Thank you for the clarification. Yep. um you know and as you can see um cost is sign it's double um at the high school um due to you know the cost of these devices that we have there um you know it is something that I would like to bring to the board's attention um I did put in my capital plan to replace these devices because they will be out warranty next year. Um, and you know, as we can see, that's what it would have been costing us if we did not have, you know, warranty on these devices. You know, it's
008$360 per screen. Um, so that's not counting the damages with the protection plan, $127. So, you know, say all of those were screens, that's, you know, 127 time 360 that we would have to um, you know, take on the cost of. Um, and with capital plans, I I mean, I history shows me that I typically don't get much for capital. Um, and you know, when I did propose it, it was, you know, about $1.5 million to refresh these devices. Um, so I would like to present to the board some options about, you know, maybe something more sustainable for our district. Sounds good. If you're all open to hearing it at a later date, right? Yeah, I can I can put everything together. I'm I'm currently in contact with some companies getting some numbers together um
009you know just trying to um present all of research that I can and our and what our options are um about what we need to do to move forward to be um financially responsible. My question is about collections. Are we doing better than last year? I haven't collected yet. Okay. Or or you mean um money collection? Yes. Um we're doing okay. So, we implemented a new billing system. It's all going through Stripe. Um and um it seems to be doing pretty well. Better than previous years. Okay. For sure. Good to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry, I thought you meant device collection. Students. Yeah. Yeah. But I just have one quick one. Sure. So total cost of damage is higher in a high school with less total number of damages. Is that directly contributed to
010the cost of the screens or the Mac versus MacBooks versus Chromebooks? Correct. Because a Chromebook screen is if it's the non-touch version, it's $30, I want to say. Um MacBook is 360. Yeah. So, right there. I mean, and then um if you need a full replacement on a Chromebook, that's $300. If you need a full replacement on a MacBook, that's $800. Okay. Um and you know, as you can imagine, sending that kind of bill home does not go over well. Yeah. So, Mr. Ta, and do we have any idea what if any impact there will be from tariff disruptions till they settle back down again? Yes. Um, my vendors have been frantically reaching out to me asking me to place orders immediately because they are receiving price locks and things of that sort um from
011certain vendors. Um to the point where, you know, he gave me a quote one day and the next day he said, "Sorry, it's unavailable now." Um, so decisions will need to be made relatively soon. um and with some haste. Um but you know, I want to make sure that I'm giving you all of my the research that I've done behind it um for that decision. The tariff impact will be less on a Chromebook than it would be on a Mac. And the $800 you mentioned is also probably not including the Apple Care that you were getting on them. So really a broken machine ends up costing over a thousand, right? Well, yes. And also, you know, at this point, they're going to stop making the model that we currently have in our schools. And so,
012you know, before we were paying about $800 per per device with about $200 with the protection that lasts us all four years. Now, it's going to be $1,000 as a baseline device price plus the protection. Um, so now you're looking instead of a $1,000 device, you're looking at a $1,200 device. Then you add on top of it whatever these tariffs are are going to do to those prices. So we could be looking at a $1,500 device. Um so yeah, just not numbers that we want to see when we have to, you know, replace a fleet of 1,200 devices next year. Okay. Any other questions? Yeah. Thank you very much. Excellent. We'll jump right into facilities and Mr. Bgola. Hello everybody. Um I included some current projects that we're working on along with a little of
013capital possibilities coming up. So these are some things we're doing at Southwest School. Uh we we just repaired a new uh uh a new ramp for the outdoor shed. It was pretty beat up, so it wasn't wasn't new. It was a replacement of it. Um we also had an issue a couple weeks ago where we had that heavy heavy rainstorm. The roof flooded, caused quite a bit of water inside of the school. Um, come to find out it was a storm drain outside that we're waiting for a contractor to come and we we made we made arrangements now where it's not going to happen again. But we have to do some digging out there. We have a a storm line that is collapsed. So all the water that was coming down is hitting hitting the
014wall and then just filling back up and overflowing the roof and leaking in all these different places. But we have temporary fix for that, but we are looking to complete that in the next week or so. Um, you know, some some basic door operations. You got those mechanical doors that you move in and out of panic doors and they go up to an electric strike. You know, the building is getting a little bit older, so we had to replace a couple of those. They weren't working properly. Um, wetmore, we have some appropriate hardware u for the thrive rooms that we're installing. We did have a a bathroom floor that uh came up beautiful that a staff bathroom that the floor was damaged quite a bit from a leak, plumbing leak it looked like for years
015and um so we end up repairing that and and replacing it. Um seems like I'm talking about leaks here. Uh torn for we had a sprinkler uh we had a sprinkler leak over there in the system. It's a dry system and uh the compressor actually went thus causing the system to activate thus putting water through the pipe and come to find out the pipe had leaks in it. So that was quite of a quite a bit of a leak we had. That's why we didn't have our meeting there last uh last meeting the full board meeting right and that was the reason why. So we repaired it. Uh we're still waiting uh to let it dry out a little bit. It's fully dry, but we have to replace some insulation, put some seal towels back.
016Um um TMS um we're getting some prices on some bathroom partition doors, uh some touchless faucets, some other possibilities um to kind of get that ready for our new our new um students that are coming in next year. Um um hopefully we get this stuff done during the summertime. We're putting some stuff together there. Um at ths we ended up installing a uh to install a new p uh padding cage in the middle the new middle school gym which allows the our athletes to when it's raining out which they've had a pretty good year so far, believe it or not. But they can now they can go inside the gymnasium and um and get some hitting in some pitching also. It's a it's it's in our new in our old high school gym. There was
017a very high-tech batting cage that we're moving over to the new high school. Well, this is an additional. So, um not quite as sophisticated. It you put it up and it comes down the same night. It's very very easy to put up and come down. The the custodians went over it with both teams and they've used it a couple times so far. So that's been um successful installation. Um some of the cap capital projects that we're looking at again the TMS was some capital stuff we want to do too, but I guess I'm throwing that term around capital a little bit. Um at Forbes, you know, with the redistricting, we're looking to uh change some heights of those kamals. I gave a couple of you guys a tour last time we were in there. kind
018of went over a few of the things um what we were looking at um you know put some some uh drinking um drinking fountain bottle fellas in um in certain areas uh just some of the petitions in those rooms where we're going to be occupying they're right in the middle of the room. Not quite sure reasoning why they did this but not a good sign. So you know we got things like that we have to take care of. Again, a lot of this stuff will be summertime um before we open school. So, um we're also tomorrow, um and I didn't put it on here, but I'm going over there with contractor. This will be the third contractor that I get going over there for a grant that we have for cameras for Forbes school to
019install cameras that we want to move forward with, which brings us in line with the tariff thing that comes along the side of it. That's kind of we're going to see. Who knows what we're going to see with that, but we do have a grant money for it and we'll see what we can do with the money and install as many as we can. Um TMS um TMS uh retro system is is is going well. We're meeting seammens out there April vacation um to go over the whole details of what they've installed so far and also the whole BMS system. um just to kind of narrow it down and start to dig in and see this stuff in operation. So I got a meeting set up in uh that week. Um roof is is moving
020forward. The TMS roof we are um almost ready to go out to bid which should be they say find out about our confirmation from the state. Yeah. So, we're waiting on some of that leg work to still get done, but a little bit behind, but nothing for a two-year project is not going to be that effect. Okay. Projects update contracts contracts. So, um, contracts. Basically, I think what we had this on here for was, um, with the new school, we're looking to make sure that any of our existing contracts, yes, are rebid, cancelled, adjusted appropriately due to less square footage and or with the new building. any of our contracts that may cover stuff in the old building, make sure that they are cancelled with appropriate notice because everything in that new school should be
021covered from the date of substantial completion, which I believe was early January. So, make sure we're not paying contracts for a building that's being torn down. Yeah. So, we we are we have gone through that um daily. Um and actually we're having some readjustments like you said. Um bleacher inspection for instance we have bleacher inspection coming up on all the other schools except the new Torington high school or to the middle school because it's still under warranty. So we've made adjustments to contracts on that. We made adjustments to our security to different security company now. So we canceled through that. Um we've been you know of course power and all that. We just uh Eversource just cut off power to the to the meter that went over. We weren't really using electricity, but but because
022of the construction process, the meter removal just happened. Um and it was an underground service that they brought in. Some of the adjustments that we're making is Jesperson, our lawn and care guy, is um um he he he gave me a number on um reducing the cost because of the less scope of work and we still want to go out there because I I want to I don't I didn't finalize it yet with them because I want to go out there and walk the site just to see exactly what we're going on. He he is in the Bahamas right now. I think he'll be back next week. So, we got that scheduled to look at that. That's probably the big one along with our snow removal, which again we we've added it. We added a
023little bit this year, but next season once the once the project is a little bit more developed, we can, you know, walk that site and see exactly what has to happen there. It gets a little um it's not as simple as just removing the snow. It's like where does it have to go and what happens when that's gets overloaded and and so there's a lot of that goes into it. You can look at a blueprint, but until you kind of walk to site and you can see what is there, what your obstacles are so you can get a a truer reading of it. A lot of obstacles in the parking lot from what I understand. Not conducive to a snowpl with that said, is there any like a significant savings from redoing any of these
024contracts other than the little bit this year? A little bit this year for with Chesperson. Um there's a little bit there, but there's, you know, you know, there's a little bit out of scope, too. So now all of a sudden that um our fence line along the highway is part of, you know, right in our view where some cleanup has got to be done there also just to get it so it looks, you know, a little bit better. You never paid attention to it when it was empty bottles down along that fence. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's um So there's, you know, a lot of that stuff when we walk through probably from the 70s and 80s. There's probably still stuff there. I'm talking about 87. I think it was 86 or 87. Yeah, it might
025be. All right, moving on. Any questions? Of all these items, how many how much of this do we do inhouse verse out to a contractor? So, like the bathroom toilets and fountains, is that an internal resource we're using to do those or is it everything on this list outsourced? Um well I went and did the band cage with me and Nick uh one of the guys we did went there on a Saturday and put it up. So that that's one thing that we were able to do. But a lot of this stuff most of the stuff when we look at it is uh yeah uh everything was held out here. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Hearing none. We're going to move on. So, let's come up with our plan for topics
026of future meetings. Um, Rachel, I guess we can just do number one and number two again, I guess. Social media and tech, unless you want to add something or you want to wait, where are we? April, May, June. Yeah. Um, if I do need to reach out sooner about options, am I able to just send an email with information? We'll keep number one and two. And if you have if there's enough time in the next month to put whatever information you have together. Yeah. For May, then just have Marissa um amend the agenda appropriately. And if you don't have time, then we'll have to kick it to June. At that point though, if we have to should probably try and get it done in April because if we have to move anything to the full
027board, we're want to get it to the full board meeting. We still have one in June, right? May. Yeah, this is May June. Anything need two weeks away if you take out anything? Rachel's asking to pull it forward though with the information, right? Not go further out. So she and she sent an email to you ahead of time if she wants to Yeah. to get Teriff wise, if I have to make moves sooner, um I can present whatever information I have potentially sooner. Is that possible? I I depending on what it is, if we have to move something to the full board, we can always hold a special meeting if you had to. I don't think there would be anything that No, I think if you did May, I think you'd be in right in
028line. May what's your tariff? If you if it's just a matter of a different device or you know PC versus laptop or whatever, does that need to have a vote an official vote from the board? So technically it's a budgeted line item. So I would say no. Correct. I think the only thing I would want I guess input on is um how you would like to proceed with um phasing out. Um I do have some options. have been in contact with some third party um companies about buyback options um possibly entertain yeah I think consult with Mr. uh Wilson on that on what the appropriate and you know finance as far as what the appropriate method is to do anything of that because it is taxpayer property right I think that's that's more of the
029part that I would like to present to you guys and and you know have a okay a bigger because it would be for anformational with the plan so that the subcommittee would be understanding of it but because it would be a line item the final decision. As long as the subcommittee was on board with the process and the plan, that would be easily done. We wouldn't need a full board. We didn't do we don't need anything. That would be correct. Okay. So, whatever you want to do. Okay. We'll make it happen. Just want to make sure everybody's on board. Excellent. And for Dean, I guess by next meeting we'll know whether the roof's going out the pit or not, right? Schedule on that. When we go out, end of this month. Well, it it the
030the date has changed because we're waiting for the approval. So, we don't have that until we get the approval from the state. So, once we find that and that may be something we have to move well once the bid goes out and then I think it's a two it was a two or three week response. Yeah, I think it was a two week response. So, after that we want to you know obviously you probably won't get that get a presentation. We'll keep keep that on there. Just keep us up to date on that. Contracts I think we cover. We don't need to talk about that again. Um and I guess projects will just keep on rolling. Keep up the date. Is there anything you need to add that you want to talk about? Um [Music]
031high school punch list maybe how how that building. Yeah. Again, a lot of that most of that major stuff is happening during the summer. Uh there's there's a lot of stuff going on during the day that, you know, they're taking care of as needed. You know, hey, the temperature control, hey, this isn't working and then they're out there, you know, handling it as is. But the major stuff that you're thinking of, summertime stuff, they're not going to go with the building. Anybody have anything that they would like to add or talk about? Time to add it. If not, yes. All right, Thomas, for good order. Start with Mr. Good meeting, guys. Thanks for all the hard work. Great meeting. Great job. Thank you. Excellent. Good meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Good meeting. Thanks. [Music] My
032goodness. You sure? I make a motion to move. just look at daddy. Okay, let's call the order meeting at 6:04 p.m. Good boy. Roll call. Okay. A motion to approve the agenda. Favor minutes the special together. No, there wasn't one of them. Let's do um the special meetings on the 26th of February and March. So move second regular meeting. So move second. All in favor? Gosh. Anyone in the public? Okay. Discussion. Next steps. Monthly financials. Okay. So, everybody got a copy of the monthly financials and had time to review them. As I've noted before in these meetings, we are in good standing. Uh, we're at 75% through with the fiscal year and we're 75% through with our budget. So, we're in a good place. I didn't know if anybody had any questions regarding the backup
033regular liner. I always have one. Start laughing again. Um just 5130 our overtime wages. How are we is that starting to flatten back out again? I everybody in the room knows this I asked this question towards the end of every year. The uh we've moved up we moved up quite a bit in this fiscal year the custodian overtime which made sense. We had a lot of stuff going on with the buildings and things but are we starting to see that settle out? Do you anticipate that continuing it to climb? Are we going to be way behind on overtime? I mean the clerical one's over pretty good already. Yeah. So, I'm going to have to get back to you on that to give you an actual indepth answer, but to answer you quickly, I'm feeling pretty
034good about it leveling off, you know, during the next couple months. Okay. Seeing the trend, but I could get more specifics. Okay. I'm just looking if the trend if we're leveling out and it's going to be okay or if we're continuing to 200% and thank you. That's it. I actually did not have that many questions. That was my work. Jason, do you have anything? Nope. I'm good. Thank you. Wow. Anyone else? My one is um legal fees only because we've had a lot of expulsions unfortunately. So yeah, how are we trending there? So, we're still on the black for legal fees, but we are getting close. I we had about 210,000 budgeted for that line item, and I think we have like 6,000 left. Uh so, um think anticipating maybe a few more obviously because
035this is as of March, the end of March, but we'll keep a close eye on it and see what we need to do there. We're okay there because there's still some incumbrances for the legal We still are expecting some expenses. So it's we're not really we're at 97 of expected with the incumbrances. Yes. Is that all shipment and Goodman legal fees or is that just expulsions? Is that everything that we would use them for policies and it's it's a combo? I'm pretty sure but that's where all of the legal fees go. Yes. Okay. Thank you. and any if I may any litigation concerns correct requests or other so it's we would build out for all that yes well I mean but some of those should be correct so well that that was the point some
036it's encumbered but so when we see any influx though there's some things that come up so but that is for all legal but you're correct in expulsion but it's all-encompassing is my I just want to make sure everyone understands not putting any one label on it that's Right. Right. And then anything in the past that would come Exactly. that would also impact. That's all I had. Um we're not going to incur any expenses with the move of Avenue in this budget cycle. Correct. It's next about So we're set with that. Okay. Cool. All right. Anyone? I'm going to teach you again. I like the competitive. This kind of competition I encourage. I second that. Mr. K. Oh, I'm not allowed to. I apologize. If I could break out from I said if I could. Topics
037for future meetings financials again. Um, and then we'll see what our favorite city will [Music] we'll see from there. For the good of the order, John. No, thank you. You're all set. Meeting. Thank you. Agreed. Great meeting. Let's have more like this now. Yes. Good meeting. Good meeting. Thank you. Great meeting. I'm gonna go on the record. I said we may have shattered the dual mean right here tonight. We're 42 minutes. I think you'd be right. We'd have to look at the records on that. I have nothing to add. Nice job. No, I can prolong anything. Thank you everyone. all the hard work that and hopefully the city will. So this is second. Okay. Six invader.